we tell more than just a story……

Martin Bormann, Hitler’s right hand man and chancellor, the man that controlled all of Nazi Germany’s appropriated loot, was tried in absentia in October 1946 at the Nuremberg trials. Found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging, Bormann evaded the noose due to his mysterious disappearance.

When anyone mentions the name Martin Bormann most baby-boomers will know who he was, they will also be quick to tell you that; while there was a wild goose-chase across the globe to find him, he certainly died in 1945, proved they say, by the finding of his bones in Berlin in 1972.

Two Nazi witnesses at the Nuremberg trials testified to the fact that they had seen Bormann and fellow Nazi, Dr Ludwig Stumpfegger dead, in the vicinity of the Weidendamm Bridge and the Lehrter train station in Berlin, only hours after fleeing the bunker – where Hitler had supposedly put a bullet through his brain. One witness going as far as to say that he had even seen Bormann’s dead ”moonlit face”.

From 1945 the hunt for Martin Bormann was on. During the confusion of those early post war years, the West German government kept the heat up, but UKUSA’s ‘hunt’ was only, If anything, lukewarm. A concentrated search effort had been made in 1945 around the site , of the supposed ‘moonlit’ scenario of Bormann and Stumpfegger, with who he was last seen alive. With the advantage of hordes of allied troops on the ground to co-ordinate a thorough search near and around the Lehrter station in Berlin, no stone was left unturned. The same was done independently by a Russian recon group, after Lieutenant General Konstantin Telegin, of the Soviet 5th Shock Army was delivered of a diary said to be of Bormann’s, found near the same site.

In those early post war years, it was not yet a ‘cold case’, with memories still fresh and the ground still soft. Any such corpses although decomposed, would have certainly been on, or near the surface and easily identifiable with the minimum of forensics; but not as much as a scrap of flesh was found of either man. At least they had some disputable charred remains of Hitler, but the bodies of Bormann and Stumpfegger had literally ‘vanished’ into thin air, along with the Nazi loot.

It was not until 1998 that due to modern science technology, the remains were subjected to a DNA forensic study by the West German prosecutor. The reason for this new 1998 investigation was that in 1996 Christopher Creighton, aka John Ainsworth-Davis a former British Naval Intelligence agent and member of the covert British group C.O.P.P (Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) had published a book, OPJB (Operation James Bond). In the book, Creighton using a pseudonym, claims that along with Ian Fleming, he was instructed by Winston Churchill and Desmond Morton the head of Secret British intelligence section V, to rescue Martin Bormann from a burning Berlin in May 1945. The book passed off as a novel, to protect Creighton from potential serious consequences due to breach of the Official Secrets Act – unsettled the German government to the extent that a thorough forensics and DNA investigation was carried out on the remains. The forensic results came back after the legal medical team matched blood from a maternal Bormann relative, the match was positive.

Martin Bormann’s body was ‘unearthed’ in 1972 – at a site that had been thoroughly and extensively searched by various groups of soldiers and investigators over the years.

A confirmation of the remains being those of Bormann was released to the world’s press, along with the statement that Martin Bormann had certainly died in 1945 at the site his remains were found.

Due to the 1998 DNA confirmation of the Martin Bormann skeleton, modern historians teach their students that stories of Bormann escaping to South America are false, nothing more than the rantings of conspiracy theorists and madmen. A handful of bona-fide investigative journalists and even former intelligence agents have been continually slandered after they have released information to the contrary, that there has been a cover-up by the western allies; that not only did Bormann escape, but his escape was orchestrated by the British intelligence services with the full knowledge of the United States government.

Anyone that dares to raise any questions as to the true dynamics of Bormann’s disappearance and death, are discredited based only on the DNA match which confirm the remains as being Bormann. But why are there such conflicting stories between the official version and the version by those that have seriously investigated this strange case for decades? Bormann’s remains were found in 1972, but did he really die in 1945? And what exactly is at stake if it were proved that he died much later than we are led to believe? Even though his remains were found in 1972 in Berlin, it does not mean that his body had lain there since 1945 and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest such. In fact, there is more evidence to suggest foul play by the British and American intelligence services, that Bormann did escape and after his death in the mid/late 1960’s his remains were carefully reburied in the place historians like to believe he fell.

On the publication of the 1998 Bormann DNA report, London’s Daily Express newspapercalled it a ‘whitewash’. The author of the article, Stewart Steven a very experienced foreign editor of the Daily Express, who was participant and directly involved with a thorough Bormann investigation in Buenos Aires, along with a team of highly qualified academics and lawyers, was sacked 6 days later. Stevens was accused of publishing a ‘hoax’ and discredited as having being hoodwinked into believing that classified Argentine government and Federal police files were fakes, even though there is absolutely no evidence to date to prove, let alone suggest, that such files were in fact anything but genuine.

But why do modern historians find it so shocking to consider the possibility that Martin Bormann, Hitler’s ‘Banker’ may have escaped from Berlin with the help of British intelligence? Not only would it make absolute sense to Churchill, to lift the man with access to all the money, it would be negligent to fail to.

After all, numerous Nazi officers who were participant in the brutal slavery of concentration camp prisoners, were snapped up by the USA for their various talents. Many of whom were made post WWII heroes in the American scientific community, after being ‘invited’ to the USA as part of Operation Paperclip. Notorious Nazi Klaus Barbie, a former head of the Gestapo and known as the ‘Butcher of Lyon’, was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to death in absentia, yet it is documented that Barbie was protected and formerly employed in 1947 by the U.S Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) and later by the CIA to set up the Western Intelligence Network to keep tabs on communist threat. This was a major and shocking betrayal by the USA as to the allied Nuremberg trial sentencing of Barbie. When the French government discovered that the USA were protecting Barbie, they requested he be immediately handed over for execution under international law. The USA flatly refused and consequently gave Barbie a new identity and shipped him off to Bolivia. If the USA could blatantly fly in the face of the International Nuremberg trials death sentence which they were actively participant in by protecting a psychopathic killer such as Barbie, why is it so unacceptable to believe that the allies would rescue Martin Bormann, the man with access to the hidden Nazi funds? If anything, there should have been a rabid race between the USA and Britain to see who could get to him first.

Between 1945 and 1965 there were numerous sightings of Bormann. Bormann’s former personal chauffeur, Jakob Glas, said that he had seen Bormann in Munich months after May 1945, as did many others.

Paul Manning, author, intelligence expert and former war correspondent claimed along with others that Bormann escaped. When Manning tried to publish his extensively researched 1981 book ‘Martin Bormann – Nazi in Exile’, he was menacingly threatened. After finally getting a renegade publisher to agree to publish his work, within two weeks the publisher had his legs broken in a vicious and anonymous attack and shortly after Manning’s son was mysteriously murdered. In fact Manning’s story is very much in line with the former British Intel officer and author of OPJB. Christopher Creighton states that Bormann escaped, as does Former WWII British army General and war crimes investigator, Ian Bell. Bell can be seen on YouTube telling us that he saw Bormann being taken to a ship in Genoa and when he radioed back to his HQ command, he was told to follow but ”do not apprehend”.

Contrary to the survival story being told by those considered ”crazy conspiracy theorists”, there are many highly qualified and well versed investigators and former intelligence agents that tell us the story we teach our children at school is just that, a story.

Hugh Thomas, surgeon, international forensic expert and author of the 1995 book Doppelgängers wrote extensively about the Bormann forensics investigation that suggest Bormann died later than 1945. According to Jonathan Glancey of The Guardian, Thomas’s ”scalpel-sharp eye for detail” and second investigative work Hess: A Tale of Two Murders, ”precipitated a six-month Scotland Yard inquiry that saw its report immediately suppressed.” Thomas confirms that the original Bormann medical reports in 1972 released only some and not all the information found under the microscope. While it is true the dentistry of the skull found was identified as Bormann, the official report failed to reveal to the public that there was dentistry performed in the skull, which could only have been done in the 1950’s due to the technology used. A man that died in 1945 is certainly not going to go to the dentist in 1950. Also, the skull ”found” in Berlin was encased in a ‘red clay’ type earth, exotic to Germany but local to a place in Paraguay, the very place that many investigators have traced Bormann to in his last years. Those last year’s being as late as 1968. Reinhardt Gehlen former senior Nazi, Cold war spymaster and head of the West German intelligence network, also claimed that Bormann escaped to South America and died in Paraguay.

But probably some of the most disturbing work comes from Ladislas Farago. In 1974, Farago a brilliant military historian, WWII war correspondent and former civilian naval intelligence officer, published ‘Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich.’ Farago, after a long and painstaking investigation on the ground in South America, much of which was spent accessing classified Argentine intelligence documents, presented his evidence including copies of said documents in his book. Not only did Farago examine and get the classified documents he accessed authenticated, he called in a team to join him on the ground in Buenos Aires to witness and document the authentication of such. The formidable 1972 Buenos Aires team with Farago included former intelligence operative and New York attorney Joel Weinberg,Stewart Steven the Foreign Editor of the London Daily Express and four top Argentine attorneys; Dr. Guillermo Macia Ray, Dr. Jaime Joaquin Rodriguez, Dr. Silvio Frondizi the brother of the former President Frondizi of Argentina and Horacio A. Perillo, the former legal aid to the Argentine President Frondizi. Farago and his team’s conclusion was that Martin Bormann certainly escaped Europe in 1945 with the help of the allies and went on to South America where he survived for many years, many of which in Argentina. Even though Farago and his team were highly qualified to make an intelligent and thorough analysis and investigation on the documents made available to them, Farago’s publication was ignored and serious attempts were made to discredit him and the other members of the team. Precedence had been set, when it came to stating or even suggesting Bormann had survived, even experts like Farago, who was also the world’s leading expert on propaganda and clandestine psychological forms of espionage at the time, was not safe from character assassination, ridicule and criticism. It is blatant there were those that were determined to keep the 1945 Bormann death myth in force and such suppression of evidence continues to this day.

But not everyone ignored Farago’s book. The content and evidence produced by Farrago was so compelling that it attracted the attention of Dr. Robert M.W. Kempner, a former Nuremberg trial attorney who decided to reopen the Bormann investigation, based on Farago’s documentary evidence of survival.

Farago, Manning, Thomas and Kempner, are sadly long gone, but the Bormann investigation is far from a cold case, as a new generation of investigative journalists have reopened the dusty Bormann files and have enthusiastically picked up from where their predecessors departed. Recent research reveals that the Federal police archives in Argentina show that the FBI were sending agents to Argentina to follow the Bormann case and his financial trails well into the 1980’s. New elderly witnesses, who till recently refused to talk have also come forward in the past 3 years and startling new evidence has come to light that cannot be ignored and may very well lead to the undisputable discovery that Bormann did escape and lived for many years in South America with the protection of the allies.

One important witness is a former military ADC to Argentine General Juan Peron. This high ranking internationally decorated military officer had been the ADC to 7 Argentine presidents, a close personal friend of Chilean President Pinochet and was the sub chief of the tough Argentine Federal secret police and prominently involved in the dismantling of the Argentine narcotics traffic in the 1990’s. His taped testimony given in 2010 on the premise that it could only be revealed after his death to protect his family, is that he met Martin Bormann frequently in Buenos Aires in late 1952 and till the end of 1953. He also testifies that on the instructions of Peron, he organised the personal security for Bormann and escorted him to various meetings in Argentina. This highly credible witness also tells us that Bormann had been installed in a famous luxury hotel in Buenos Aires throughout 1953, which was owned by Germans. The ADC also testifies that he was sent on a weekly basis to collect the Bormann bill from the hotel concierge which he was instructed to take directly to Peron, who paid the bill from his personal bank accounts. This man asked for nothing in exchange for his testimony, all he requested was that the truth be finally known after his death. The official died in 2012 and his testimony is now ready for publication.

Another recent elderly witness with ties to the FBI and CIA, is a former Naval Captain who was in charge of the security for the port of Buenos Aires. He tells us that not only was it common knowledge, but it is documented in the classified Federal police archives that Bormann was certainly living in Argentina in the 50’s and that the CIA were in Argentina keeping close tabs on Bormann’s South American movements as late as 1967.

The most controversy surrounds the author of the 1996 book OPJB. Christopher Creighton writes that he was instructed by Lord Louis Mountbatten and Winston Churchill to reveal the truth of all the ops in which he was participant, 25 years after the death of both. According to Creighton, OPJB is not only the title of the book, but the operational code name given to the plan to rescue Bormann from Berlin. Documents have been seen and recently photographed which were written to Creighton from Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1976 which prove Creighton was not only certainly working for British Naval intelligence at the very highest level, but that Creighton was Desmond Morton’s Godson. This new evidence puts in grave doubt spy writer Nigel West’s claims that Christopher Creighton is a ”charlatan”. There are also letters from James Bond author Ian Fleming to Creighton which testify to OPJB, the highly covert operation as being fact and that he based his James Bond Character on Creighton’s covert naval operations. How did Fleming know? Because according to verified letters from Fleming to Creighton, Fleming was not only part of the operation while he was a Royal Naval commander under the command of Desmond Morton for the British secret service, but he was the commander in charge of the rescue. A British factual film company, Christopher Robin Media Ltd, have in their possession an as yet unpublished 2013 interview of Creighton recorded only weeks before his death. The startling interview gives never before revealed details of various highly covert British Naval intelligence operations, including the assassination of French Admiral Francois Darlan and the operation to remove Martin Bormann from Berlin.

In 2007 a lady came forward to investigators with a story that she had been born in a German clinic in Brazil in 1952. This five foot two, blonde, green eyed lady, was found to be a well balanced, well educated and discreet and trustworthy member of her community, a far cry from a publicity seeking delusional self-promoter. Her adoptive father had been a senior naval officer for the Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo. She claims her adoptive father was entrusted with her in 1952, the year of her birth, after he was in Brazil negotiating arms deals between the Dominican Republic government and the German arms factories hidden in the Brazilian jungle.

In 1984 she contacted the Simon Wiesenthal centre after her adoptive father revealed on his death-bed that she was the daughter of ”one of Germany’s three greatest men”. Extremely distressed at this shocking revelation and wondering who it could possibly be, she with her attorney approached the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for help. Within weeks her attorney was anonymously threatened with his life and shortly after, dropped her representation after the SWC aggressively told him that they were not able to help and would not investigate due to ”lack of funds”. An unusual response from a wealthy organisation whose main objective has been to track down Nazi war criminals. Even Simon Wiesenthal himself believed till his death in 2005, a full 7 years after the 1998 DNA analysis that Bormann escaped and was frequently outspoken against the official version. It is shocking and detrimental to Wiesenthal’s memory, that those that now head the very organisation founded in his name have obstructed investigations and ridicule others that believe what Wiesenthal believed, Bormann escaped.

I contacted the SWC in 2010 to request copies of the investigation files held by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre on Martin Bormann. After three months of cold shouldering on their part, I finally managed to speak to the head of the organisation itself. I revealed the fact we were in touch with a lady that had been formally refused help by the SWC in 1985 and we had the documentation that the SWC refused to investigate due to ”lack of funding”. We were now soliciting their support to reopen her case and investigate, especially as the SWC had been avidly promoting and raising significant funding for their much publicised”Operation Last Chance” ”a campaign to bring remaining Nazi war criminals to justice by offering financial rewards for information leading to their arrest and conviction”. But rather like the famous Anna Anderson and Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia case, all efforts to access information on official files to see if this adopted woman has any Nazi blood connections have failed.

If Bormann did escape, then the adopted woman may very well be the daughter of Martin Bormann, not only because of the mysterious dynamics surrounding her birth, but photos of her, the officials involved, the timing of her birth and the fact investigators believe Bormann was in Brazil with Dr Joseph Mengele in late 1951. Recent photos of the woman’s son show an uncanny similarity with Martin Bormann’s eldest son Adolf.

Access to genuine DNA of Martin Bormann or one of his children or grandchildren is now vital to the investigation, not only to make comparisons with potential offspring conceived post 1945, but also to compare with supposed Bormann DNA profiles in the Files held by various intelligence agencies. If Bormann did indeed escape, those that covered it up are going to go to enormous lengths to hide any incriminating evidence. Bonafide DNA profiles of Bormann would be the last thing they would leave hanging around.

I was extremely surprised to discover that during the forensic analysis of the Bormann remains in 1998, only mitochondrial DNA was put on the record. And the Bormann relation that was used to confirm the identity of the skeleton was a Borman Maternal relative, not Martin Bormann’s son who was easily available for such. The mitochondrial dna specifics were confirmed in a conversation I had with one of the doctors involved in the original 1998 investigation, which had been instigated by the West German Prosecutor. For those that are not genetically savvy, mitochondrial DNA could only be used to match a person or corpse to maternal blood relations. This means that the Martin Bormann DNA profile held on official documents is worthless for use for matching with any possible offspring or grandchildren.

One would have thought that after going to such extraordinary lengths of opening a through investigation and having such remains available for research, the scientists and doctors would have taken every possible bit of data possible, particularly DNA – they did not. And just to keep things really tidy, after the closing of the investigation, Martin Bormann, guardian to Nazi Germany’s post WWII wealth and classified technology, was promptly cremated and thrown ‘into the sea‘.

Those that work to uncover highly covert conspiracies have a hard time, whether it be on the kennedy assassination, death of princess Diana or Martin Bormann, much of their compelling evidence can be at best circumstantial and it would not be a conspiracy if the organisers of such were sloppy enough to leave a paper trail or hot leads to expose their plot. The appeal is now for genuine Martin Bormann blood relatives to come forward, not only to cross match with the woman, but to cross match with the DNA profiles supposedly used to identify Bormann in 1998 and those held in official and public files. Of course if this woman does have Bormann DNA and being born in a German clinic in Brazil in 1952, it will once and for all put to bed the mystery and will vindicate all those that have sacrificed much to reveal what they believed to be the truth. Could that truth be that Martin Bormann escaped and went on to manage the vast funds accumulated by Nazi Germany with the help of Britain and the USA? And according to recent research, those vast funds were probably laundered through and invested into over 750 international companies with or without Bormann.

Since 1972, ‘official’ historians and academics have spun their tales and told the world that Bormann certainly died near the Lehrter station in the early hours of May 2 1945. This oral history is based on no more than unreliable witnesses, two of which were Nazi’s and a DNA match to a skeleton found in 1972. DNA may prove that the remains are those of Bormann, but there is more evidence to prove that he was alive for at least 25 years after 1945. 25 years, in which he could have managed the vast Nazi wealth, including cash, gold, stocks, bonds, shares and priceless works of art. After all, with all the modern banking forensics available to date, not one single intelligence agency or government claims that the vast, fat, booty has been found! Or has it? Yet it has been officially written, printed, signed sealed and delivered, even into our children’s history lessons. Martin Bormann died in 1945 de-facto, the loot disappeared and anyone that tells you different is a deluded ‘conspiracy theorist’.

Proving once and for all with new testimony, documentation and forensic science that Hitler’s handler, Martin Bormann survived, will redeem many damaged reputations and will certainly bury the myth and cause many a red face in the high end academic and ‘history’ community. But more importantly, it will open a very nasty can of worms and raise many more complicated and embarrassing questions to those agencies and governments that will have knowingly perpetrated the Bormann death myth for the past 70 years.

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Goldeneye Publishing Ltd

Laurence de Mello is a British investigative journalist and factual TV and film producer. A media professional since 1985 she has worked on programs with and for Discovery US, Discovery Europe, The Learning Channel Rai 1&2, NTV Russia, Nat Geo, Berlusconi Networks BBC, Channel 4, etc.,
Laurence de Mello uses the pseudonym Ami de Creighton and is co-author of 'The Mountbatten Report - final edition' with former British Naval spy/assassin John Ainsworth-Davis aka Christopher Creighton.
A member of The British Association of Journalists she is represented by Tony Clayman at Tony Clayman Promotions Limited London. Laurence de Mello divides her year between London and Buenos Aires
Goldeneye logo art and design by Mardi Coeur de Lion http://mardi.ca/